Puzzle Pieces

Although we have been home owners for 40 years, we have never “decorated” a room until we undertook this project. We have chosen paint and floor coverings occasionally, and an individual piece of furniture once in a while. Together we have designed and built decks and bay windows, but when it comes to planning a space starting with a blank sheet of paper, we are novices. No wonder people use decorators! But we are getting a lot of satisfaction from putting all of the pieces of the puzzle together. Right, wrong or indifferent... the design will be OURS.

We visited our cabinet maker yesterday and defined most of the  details of what will probably be the biggest-ticket item for the project. Don loves quarter-sawn white oak. We decided on a simple Shaker-style. All of the new inside-the-cupboard options look very functional, and a far cry from the carpenter built-in-place drawers and shelves we had before, that were simply boxes sliding on wood.

When our old kitchen cupboards were removed we found this, the signature of the original cabinet builder, complete with the number and insignia of his union. Signed exactly 67 years ago today.

The first idea we had for kitchen tile and colors incountered a major snag when the artist began a cancer treatment which would take her away from work for weeks, perhaps months, so we turned for inspiration for the kitchen colors from a local tile maker, Pratt and Larson. Sami, with some input from Don, has designed a tile focal point for behind the range, using multi-colored bas-relief tiles featuring garden and animal themes. Earth colors from these tiles will be used throughout the kitchen.

Top right, white oak sample. The tiles are part of Pratt and Larson's "Watercolor" line.

This concept drawing does not show the depth and range of colors, or the background color, which would be the lightest tile in the photo above.

For the new main-floor bathroom Sami is envisioning a color pallet drawn from Simon our cat, creamy browns, grays with turquoise blue touches, although this is still “on the drawing board.” We do have a concrete plan for the all of the elements of that room including fixtures and their placement. This will help Corey in his framing effort in the next several days.

Should we use the beautiful blue of Simon's eyes as an accent color, or perhaps bring the rusty red in from the kitchen decor? Decisions, decisions.

We feel like many of the puzzle pieces are moving into place! Don had his fifth bone marrow biopsy today. The results will determine what his next stage of treatment will be. We’re hoping that the treatment will be moderate, and Don will be able to do all he has signed up for (all wood trim, kitchen and bath flooring, patching the oak flooring in the dining room and entry way, installing bathroom fixtures and all light fixtures, and a couple of specialty wood working projects). Whew!  All for now.

LOTS ACCOMPLISHED!

Since our last blog entry, we were able to complete the ‘sweat equity’ part of demolition and prep for our builder, Corey, before leaving on an 8-day trip (Sami’s 50th high school reunion and a stay at the Library Cottage in Manzanita). The ‘sweat equity’ work included completely stripping the kitchen and main floor bathroom of all cabinets, cupboards, appliances, sinks, toilet, and ceramic wall and floor tile, as well as selling, donating, or disposing of those things. It also included completely emptying Don’s Man-Cave (basement office) and removing the wall separating it from the rest of the basement, to enable footing and column work for a needed support beam. It should be noted that Carl and Angie helped demo the kitchen (a Father’s Day present).

Before departing on our trip, we boarded Simon and Daphne at the "Kitty Condos."  We endured a loud symphony of complaints on the drive there. We tried to tell them they would be better off at the condos than in a house with concrete sawing and jack hammer work.

While we were on our trip, Corey began the serious demolition work and put in the footing for the support column in the basement. He dutifully sent us several pictures at the end of each work day, so we could monitor the progress.  It was a little daunting to leave, knowing what was going to happen to our home. It helped to know that Corey was running the show—much better than someone doing this who we didn’t know or have confidence in. Here are a couple of his in-process pictures...

This is the hole cut in the basement floor where Don’s office wall was removed, for the footing for support columns to support a beam that will allow part of the load-bearing wall shared by the kitchen and dining room to go away.

The work area (kitchen, dining room, main floor bedroom) is sealed off with zippered plastic doors, to contain the dust and debris of the demo work.

Sometimes we would have to study Corey’s pictures a little, to understand what part of the house we were looking at.  Not to worry...

We returned from our trip late Friday, August 31st. We found that we had to think ahead about how to get to different parts of the house. The next morning we mastered how to handle showering, breakfast, etc., by going from the top floor down to the living room, outside the back living room door, around to the back door to the basement, and then inside to go downstairs to the basement for coffee and breakfast. Then we retrieved the cats from the Kitty Condos, and endured another LOUD symphony of complaints during the ride home. They have finally settled in and have conditionally forgiven us for their unfortunate incarceration.

Here are photos taken of progress since our return.

All wall and ceiling surfaces are now removed, exposing lots of wires and plumbing.  What may not be obvious are the two temporary walls on either side of the load-bearing wall that has been removed.  The temporary walls hold up the ceiling and the upstairs until the load beam for the ceiling is installed.

The ceiling has been removed in the kitchen.

Every project has one BIG challenge.  For this project, it is the sewer stack pipe, shown below.  It is causing problems far out of proportion to it’s innocent look.  The challenge is to reroute it so that the required ceiling beam on the main floor can be properly placed, and also not alter where we want the wall opened up.  Dan the plumber will show up on Tuesday and hopefully perform miracles.

 

The pictures below show the load beam installed in the basement ceiling, in Don’s office.  This beam supports the columns for the load beam that will be installed in the dining room ceiling.  To avoid having to put a column in the middle of the basement shower (meaning remodeling yet another bath room), and having a beam hang below the ceiling in Don’s office, a fabricated cantilevered steel beam was installed (cantilevered meaning one side extends beyond it’s column (over the top of the shower stall).

Here’s the new shower for the main floor bathroom.  It’s in three pieces, as there’s no way to get a one-piece stall in to the house.

We have made a lot of headway in a bunch of other areas too, but we'll save that for the next blog entry.

Full Steam Ahead!

Don is hard at work on our sweat equity tasks; removing doors, trim, walls and fixtures. He often uses every "energy pellet" he has each day, and then some. Sami is trying to keep up with getting rid of the stuff that is going away; a bed, appliances, furniture and mirrors. Craig's List, Goodwill, family, The Rebuilding Center and a local junk collector are all on her list of contacts. The garden is being very generous too, so our temporary kitchen is seeing lots of cooking and canning. Phew!

The main floor is getting deconstructed.

Only the living room remains intact.

Our temporary kitchen gets an A-plus!

Deadlines for decisions are also pressing. One of them is choosing a color pallet for the tile mural that will go behind the stove. Do you have a vote?

Metolius Ridge Tiles for a pomegranate mural. Which colors?

Demo Day

There is no turning back now. Today, Carl and Angie helped us demo the kitchen. Drawers, counters, ceiling, range, sink and microwave.... gone, gone GONE!

Moving Day

Thursday, June 11 was moving day. Everything in the kitchen went to the its temporary place in the basement. Over the last few days Don re-purposed our old TV cabinet into kitchen counters. Last week, Sami sorted through and packed up all of the books in the bookcase and cleaned up the canning cupboard so there would be room for kitchen stuff.  Don and Carl moved our garage refrigerator to Carl’s house and moved our kitchen refrigerator out into the garage.

With the fresh paint, a new TV and coffee tables the basement is looking cozy. That is where we will cook, eat, and hang out for the next several months while the main floor is remodeled. The cats are getting over having their food dishes moved.

First attempt at baking using the table-top oven. Perhaps a little brown, but the blueberry pie smells mighty good!

The floor is worn through, the dishwasher defunct, and the paint is scrubbed off. Its about time to remodel.

The temporary kitchen is almost finished, complete with mini-fridge, counter top oven, and a hot plate.

Working Hard

We have a long, long list of things to do before the remodel begins. First, was to finish the current big house project. We began last September to build a brick and paver walkway around the front of the house and a patio adjacent to the driveway. We worked at it all winter, and now it is done. Our porch is a mighty nice place to enjoy morning coffee, and there is no more stepping onto muddy grass from the driveway. Now on to doing the fifty other things that must happen before the first hammer is swung.

Backing Up To Move Forward

   We began our journal-blog five and a half years ago. The original goal was to update and improve our kitchen. Much has been accomplished since we began; a new upstairs bathroom, insulation, a new front porch, and an awesome front walkway. All this in spite of Don’s cancer diagnosis and treatment.

   But, the kitchen remains a scruffy mess! We have decided that the time has come to reach our goal. In those five and a half years some things have changed. We are no longer as able to design the details and carry out the entire project. So, it is no longer a complete D.I.Y. project. Our needs have changed a little too. Our first plan sacrificed space in the main floor bedroom to widen the kitchen. Now we are older and we think we may need to use that bedroom ourselves when stairs become difficult to climb. So we have gone back to the drawing board. To that end we have hired a new architect, because the first one moved to Alaska (the cad!). Together with the new person we have roughed out a new plan. Coming up with the full-blown, detailed plan has had a few surprises. Portland has adopted new tree protection rules which have impacted how things are done (ka-ching!) as well as new seismic rules that impact the permit process and construction (ka-ching!!). Our architect, together with a structural engineer, inform us that new structural supports must be built in the basement, reaching down to the foundation (ka-ching!!). A basement wall must be torn out, a hole cut in the cement floor, columns and posts built and the wall rebuilt. (ka-ching, KA-CHING!!).

  There has also been a lot of back and forth with the architect about how best to get the look and functionality we want. We are finding out that when you pay someone else to do something that you have always done yourself before, there are consequences, in terms of time, money, and frustration.

   So, we focus on what we can do to get things ready for the work to begin; cleaning out the kitchen and dining room, researching products, shopping for appliances, brainstorming solutions to problem areas. We will move cooking and eating activities to the basement while the work is in progress. That necessitated fixing up the basement. More about that next time

Sami is painting everything in the basement so it will be a clean place for our temporary kitchen. When she sanded one of the doors, paint fell off in sheets.

 

Some of the paint contained lead. Removing it wasn't easy. There were at least five layers. The paint from one side of the door weighed several pounds! More backing up to move forward.